Comments on: Double Lives: American Painters as Illustrators

By: Casey Klahn

Casey Klahn — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:08:07 +0000

Even the haughtiest fine artist must admit that commercial illustrators have added much to contemporary art. Good for you, Charley, for blurring the walls.

A debt? Yes, a debt is owed by all artists to guys like Norman Rockwell.

By: Glendon Mellow

Glendon Mellow — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:43:18 +0000

While I agree that illustration is not ‘lower’ than fine art, they are usually somewhat distinct now.

Most illustration is figurative, and has subject matter that looks outward at the world, even in an imagined way.

Most fine art since the modernists is concerned with the subject of art-making in at least some way, and self-consciously naval-gazes at its own process.

So while I personally would not place one as higher than the other, they are (overlapping, with plenty of grey areas) separate cultures within art.

By: SIM-R

SIM-R — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:00:24 +0000

I always find the very topic of fine art versus illustration to be hilarious .
The very notion that someone thinks enough of their work to place themselves in a higher category speaks volumes about the finer points in their ” art ” to begin with .

I’ve always tried to measure art by the caliber and not the category .

Cheers for that charley .

By: tima

tima — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:19:02 +0000

As a commercial illustrator who also paints as a hobby, for years i have had to “hide” my work as an illustrator, from the fine art crowd….
a sad but real situation.
An instructor in art school once described it to me this way “the difference between an
illustrator and a fine artist, is the illustrator will admit to you he does it for money”=)

By: Katherine

Katherine — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:06:03 +0000

I like Matt’s response.

I’ve noticed on a number of occasions how the composition and design in an artist’s paintings seems to be very powerful – and then discover that the artist had an illustration / graphic design / commercial art bakground.

By: Matt Innis

Matt Innis — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 18:31:11 +0000

When I was in college studying illustration, I took a 20th Century Art History course in which the professor had been receiving complaints from his painting students about us “sellouts,” the commercial artists. The teacher addressed the class and told the fine artists that they were no different from the illustrators: we were all creating work to be sold. Even the fine artists who were creating art because of “their need to express themselves, no matter what the commercial viability” needed money, even if it was just to buy more paint.

Even now, many of the most popular contemporary artists began their careers as illustrators (Howard Terpning, James Bama, Malcolm Liepke, etc.)

By: Dan van Benthuysen

Dan van Benthuysen — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 18:26:35 +0000

Brad Holland is right. But there is a solution: He just needs to refer to himself as a visual communication artist. That should do it.

Interesting the the Brandywine should do this show: I find that N.C. Wyeth’s commercial work, while stunning and profound, almost always has a touch of melodrama that his gallery work does not. And in a similar vein it seems that his son, Andrew, has had little taste for commercial work, while Jamie has a flair for it.

In other artists, the distinction between commercial and gallery work can be less pronounced. Rockwell Kent, for example, seemed to invoke the same formalist drama whether working for a publisher or for his own satisfaction.